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Kendall Reyes is a behemoth who is part butterfly. The Chargers’ second-round draft choice is a defensive lineman with a build typical of the trenches, but his hulking presence was preceded by a Bruce Banner phase.

Before Reyes swelled into a six-foot-4, 299-pound football specimen at the University of Connecticut, he was deployed as a relatively sleek wide receiver at Nashua (N.H.) North High School. He scored that school’s first-ever touchdown on an 85-yard kickoff return and retains, he says, “great hands.” Reyes is an athlete who happened to get huge.

“To me, he could have played any of the positions across the board,” UConn assistant head coach Hank Hughes said Friday night. “A couple of years ago we played at Notre Dame and he chased a running back from behind and stripped him of the ball ...

“He’s a guy who can pick up wherever and add to it.”

Though college football coaches generally issue recommendations so glowing that they could light Las Vegas, it’s often instructive to seek out their talking points about former players: what attributes they choose to emphasize; what areas they prefer to gloss over. If Reyes is reputedly short on closing speed and stamina, if he admits to losing leverage by sometimes playing too high, his versatility and adaptability make him an appealing and intriguing choice.

Reyes started 32 games at UConn as a defensive tackle, 10 more as a defensive end, and he often moved among several spots in the middle of a game. If he doesn’t work out as a Chargers’ defensive end, perhaps Reyes could project as a nose tackle or a stadium pillar. Perhaps he should appear on the depth chart as a “chameleon.”

“He’s tremendously versatile,” said Don Brown, UConn’s defensive coordinator. “He can rush the passer and he’s also an equally solid run-stopper. He can play defensive end or be the middle guy in the 3-4.

“We bounced him around a little bit, (trying) to find (opponents’) weak sister ... and you can’t do those things with guys if they’re not going to line up properly. He’s unbelievably sharp; has tremendous football savvy. You tell him once.”

Like most rookies on draft day, Reyes expressed an eagerness to get going, to master his playbook, to contribute wherever his coaches might want him. No diva, this dude.

“If you’re on the team, you’ve got to be ready to play,” Reyes said. “If I make the team, I’ll just take it from there.”

Maybe his tone will become more mercenary once negotiations begin in earnest, but Reyes’ reputation is for persistent sunshine, even on the dreariest days. As a high school sophomore, he was voted class president. At UConn, he was a team captain two years in a row.

“With some guys, you worry about their off-the-field attitude and where their life is spent,” Brown said. “There are none of those issues here. This guy is a pleasure to be around and raises his teammates’ level of play. On Monday, you don’t know whether you won or lost (because) he comes back with a smile on his face.

“He’s going to find the silver lining every single day of his life.”

If these personal qualities make Reyes a good fit among the solid citizens on the Chargers’ line, they would lose their relevance if he can’t play. The National Football League prefers mayhem to manners in its defensive linemen, and a specific skill set rather than a broad range of competence.

The goal is not to pester the quarterback, after all, but to punish him. Where the New Orleans Saints went wrong was in creating a slush fund to reward the infliction of injuries, not for the underlying malevolence of an inherently violent game.

Put another way, we know Kendall Reyes can be nice; the question is whether he can be nasty.

“He plays with a relentless motor,” Brown said. “He can push the pocket in the passing game and knock you back in the run game. Against Iowa State, we lined up an offset three (man line) with two ends rushing. He’s bullrushing the offensive tackle when the quarterback starts to run. He takes the tackle, throws him into the 10th row of the bleachers and sacks the quarterback.”

The video of that particular play indicates Brown is exaggerating — the Iowa State tackle flies no further than the sixth row of the bleachers — but it is a testament to Reyes’ athleticism and aggressiveness. He looks like a player who would not be out of place dropping into coverage or catching patches — like a bear with a talent for the tango.

“He’s an athletic guy,” Chargers’ coach Norv Turner said. “I talked to (Buffalo defensive coordinator) Dave Wannstedt after we drafted him and he coached against him at Pitt. And it’s amazing — he played end, played defensive tackle. That’s really unusual.”

Where Kendall Reyes ultimately fits is a decision for another day. Though it’s probably safe to assume he’s outgrown pass receiving by now, try finding a cornerback who wants to tackle him.